\n<\/p>\n
However, this didn’t give them sanctuary for long, because in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria. With Jews in Austria then facing ever more repression, Dame Stephanie’s parents decided that they had to get her and her older sister Renate out of the country.<\/p>\n
So in July 1939, just two months before the start of World War Two, the then five-year-old Dame Stephanie and nine-year-old Renate were placed on one of the Kindertransport trains taking Jewish child refugees to the UK.<\/p>\n
“I was clutching the hand of my sister, so she, the poor thing, had to look after me as well as her own problems,” says Dame Stephanie, who is today 85.<\/p>\n
“I felt upset rather than scared, because I just didn’t know what was going on. I remember the childish things, like losing my doll… and there was a little boy who was sick all the time on the train. But we were very lucky.”<\/p>\n
While many of us might think we’d struggle to overcome such childhood trauma, Dame Stephanie says it gave her a lifelong determination to be successful. “I’m still driven by that start in life.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n